HILLSVILLE –– Carroll County is sound fundamentally and always has a shooter or three lurking on the outside, two things that keep the Cavaliers competitive night-in and night-out. The emergence of an inside presence has made Carroll dangerous.

Richlands learned that first-hand on Saturday.

The penetration and outside shooting of Lindsey Martin coupled with the domination by Shyann Dalton in the paint proved a combination too much for Richlands to handle as the Cavaliers claimed a key 54-39 win in a Southwest District game.

Dalton poured in 20 points and Martin added 18 as the Cavaliers took over sole possession of first place in the district.

“We haven’t played anybody all year who has had an answer for Shyann, when she’s comfortable,” Carroll County coach Marc Motley said. “She’s been comfortable the last three games, and she’s getting better and better every game.”

Dalton, a 6-1 junior center, averaged 5.8 points in the Cavaliers’ first seven games before exploding for 19 and 20 in the last two.

“Her hands are so soft and she’s so strong that you can’t do anything with her,” Motley said. “And right now we’ve got shooters all around her, so if you double-team her, we kick it out to Rachel [Dalton], kick it out to Lindsey, to Emily [Hiatt], Crysta [Guynn]…Taylor Martin hit a big three for us, and it leaves Kallie [Scott] and Maleah [Neely] open for rebounding. It’s a tough matchup for other teams.”

The balance on offense resulted in a win surprisingly easy for Carroll, which had squeaked by with a two-point win in the two teams’ first meeting.

“This was a big game for us,” said Motley. “You’ve got to win at home. We took care of business on the road in a tight one where we didn’t play great, but when they come to your place you’ve got to secure that victory. We feel they are the best team in this district and we came out and really played hard.”

Carroll County (6-3 overall, 3-0 district) never trailed after Neely scored in transition for a 9-7 lead at 2:56 of the fist quarter. Two Dalton buckets on the inside and a Lindsey Martin 3-pointer spread the gap to 16-9 and the Cavaliers led by as many as nine before taking a 26-20 lead into the half.

The third quarter was all Carroll County.

Starting with the last three points of the second quarter and stretching into the first two minutes of the fourth quarter, the Cavaliers outscored Richlands 20-6. Taylor Martin scored on a drive and then swished a 3-pointer to end the third with Carroll up 36-24, and Dalton opened the fourth with a free throw and a short bucket. The two each added a basket shortly thereafter as the Cavaliers took their largest lead of the game, 43-26, with 6:02 to play.

Richlands (4-5, 4-2) used a 10-3 run to close to within 46-36 with 3:06 to play, but a timeout settled the Cavaliers, who finished on an 8-3 spurt.

“That’s a solid basketball team,” Motley said of Richlands. “We didn’t think [Rachel Alley] or [Kelli Hess] could hurt us, so we wanted to make sure we could take Shyann or Maleah and give a lot of help, because 14 [Meagan Robinson] and 12 [Brittany Allen] attack the basket so well. We wanted to make sure we had a hand in their face when they shot it, and we did that.”

Allen and Robinson teamed for 21 points in the first meeting but totaled just 12 Saturday.

“They made some tough shots,” Motley said. “Their 39 points, they were tough shots. We fouled them a few times, but the bottom line is we were aggressive on defense and made them take tough shots.”